by David Ellis
“Take a pill, sweetheart,” the voice says through the door.
“It’s eight-thirty in the morning!” she hollers, watching the door.
“Christ, lady—”
McCoy lets her weight transfer to her toes. She sees the door crack open and comes forward with full force, before the keychain has even stretched taut against the space, while the man is still in the midst of positioning his weight backward to open the door. That’s the key. It would probably take her several attempts to get through this door if it were shut, assuming she could do it at all. It’s all about surprise and balance.
She leads with her shoulder. She wants to keep her feet but it’s been a while, and anyway, this guy will be on his back, too. She hits the door and feels a pop in her shoulder, nothing permanent, but something she’ll remember for a while. Something this guy, Jimmy, will remember for a while, too.
The chain lock pops from the force. McCoy manages her balance as she stumbles on the hardwood floor of the apartment. Jimmy is on the floor behind the door.
“I’m a federal agent,” she says quickly, lest Jimmy get any ideas. Under these circumstances, this might be good news for Jimmy. But she will take no chances. She removes her weapon, tucked in the back of her jeans, her credentials quickly following, a badge on a leather base. She kicks the door shut and keeps the weapon trained on Jimmy, before he even knows what has happened.
Jimmy is mid-thirties, with stringy blond hair and darker facial hair. Why do these idiots think goatees look good?
“FBI,” she says. She motions with her weapon. “Get up. Sit down on that disgusting couch.” McCoy backs up and kicks at the stereo until it shuts up. “Sit, Jimmy. Sit. This might work out okay for you.”
“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jimmy answers, making his way to the couch and falling on it.
McCoy gives him a crosswise look, lets her eyes move about the room. There are betting slips in piles on a desk, next to a ledger with numbers in three vertical columns—one for the bettor, one for the game, one for the amount, all in code. Four—no, five different cell phones—ghost phones, stealing signals from legitimate phones, making them untraceable. A bowl of Cheerios, half-finished, sits on the desk as well. “This wouldn’t be your first offense,” she says, deliberate in her choice of the conditional tense. “You probably know the sentencing guidelines better than I do.”
“This ain’t right.”
“That’s what you get for chincing on your sentries, Jimmy. A ten-year-old kid?”
Jimmy’s jaw clenches. He’s probably got some ideas about that kid in his head.
“Wasn’t his fault,” she says. “We’ve been watching you. It wouldn’t have mattered.”
“What the hell is this?” Jimmy asks.
A fair enough question. A federal agent, dressed in a pajama top and jeans, comes in solo and doesn’t seem all that interested in busting his chops. McCoy felt she had no choice. She wants to involve as few people as possible in this operation. And okay, maybe she wanted a little physical exercise.
“I have a couple of questions for you, Jimmy. If you answer them, I’m gone in thirty seconds. If you lie, we’re not friends anymore.”
Her new amigo squirms in his seat, folds his arms. “So ask me,” he says.
“Doctor Neil Lomas,” she says. “And if you tell me you don’t know him, I’m cleaning up this apartment.”
Jimmy ponders this, and that confirms her suspicion. Giving up the name of one of the people who places bets with him is not asking too much, considering the alternative. But this one is giving him pause.
She wonders what he knows about Doctor Neil Lomas. Does he know why he started gambling? Probably not. Does he have any idea that Doctor Lomas is in the process of producing a deadly drug that will be indistinguishable from baby aspirin?
Definitely not. No, Jimmy’s hesitation has nothing to do with Agent McCoy’s interest in the doctor.
“I got no business with that guy,” Jimmy says.
Actually, as phrased, Jimmy is probably telling the truth.
“Doctor Lomas was into you for fifteen grand,” she tells him. “You were getting impatient. Stomp your foot twice if I’m wrong.”
“What the fuck.”
“Now, just like that,” McCoy adds, “you’re leaving him alone. You haven’t sent anyone after him for months. That’s because he’s all paid up now. Right, Jimmy?”
Jimmy shakes his head.
“Just give me a name,” she says, sensing his obvious reluctance. “I know Doctor Lomas didn’t pay you himself.”
Jimmy’s mouth parts. He is probably weighing jail time versus incurring the wrath of the person who purchased Doctor Neil Lomas’s debt.
Besides, he probably couldn’t give McCoy a name.
This guy is scared. She could brace him a lot harder, but she’s not particularly interested in spending the entire morning with Jimmy, and she most certainly does not want to haul him in.
She pulls a photograph, folded in half, from her back jeans pocket and shows it to him. She watches his eyes.
Jimmy’s eyes go cold as winter, mesmerized, seemingly, by the photograph. He loses what little color he had in his face.
No question. She never really had any doubt.
“Lady,” says Jimmy, “you definitely didn’t hear me say yes.”
“No, I didn’t,” she agrees. He didn’t need to say the words. “I was never here, Jimmy, right?” she asks, but she knows that the last thing that Jimmy wants to do is discuss this conversation.
“Fuck yeah, you were never here. Keep me outta this shit.”
“You’re out of it.” She considers telling him to fold up shop, but that would be another unnecessary request. This place is burned now. Jimmy will be out of here in a matter of hours.
“And listen to me,” she says, on her way out. “You lay a hand on Jackson out there and I’ll find you. We understand each other?”
“I got you, lady. Just go.”
She heads back down the stairs and re-dresses, her jacket, heels, and baseball cap. She emerges from the apartment to find little Jackson, wearing a soulful expression with his hands still plastered to his cheeks. She removes two twenties from her pocket and puts them in his hand. Call it severance pay.
“We’re all good, Jackson,” she says to him. “Take off now. Stay out of trouble.”
Jackson lets out a moan.
“And the three of clubs is the middle card,” she says to him.
FOUR DAYS EARLIER
SUNDAY, APRIL 18
So the question is,” Larry Evans says, “why did Flanagan-Maxx hire only Sam Dillon to get the Divalpro legislation passed? Dillon was a Republican, so he was the natural to work the House and the governor. But what about the Senate? Why didn’t they hire anyone to work the Senate?”
“That’s an easy question,” Allison says. “The Senate Dems don’t like Flanagan-Maxx. They won’t like this legislation. So they use someone else to push the Senate.”
Larry sips his coffee, clearly unsatisfied with the answer. “They funnel money to the Midwestern Alliance for Affordable Health Care? Their arch-enemy, suddenly their best friend.” Larry points at his notes. “A quarter of a million dollars to MAAHC last year? That’s how much F-M paid to MAAHC, last year. Did you know that?”
Larry has been reading the reports filed with the state board of elections, as well as Flanagan-Maxx’s financial statements for the previous year.
“And, lo and behold,” he continues, “MAAHC turns around and gives a hundred grand to Mat Pagone to lobby the Senate for the Divalpro legislation. House Bill 1551.”
“So?” Allison shrugs. “Seniors want Divalpro.”
“Bullshit. Every seniors’ group except MAAHC was opposed. The generics would be every bit as good, and everyone knows it.”
“Okay, fine.” Allison tucks a hair behind her ear. “So, Flanagan-Maxx knows they have no friends in the Senate, they want a different face supporting it.
They kick some money to MAAHC to support the legislation. MAAHC uses some of that money to hire Mat, they keep the rest of it. I still haven’t heard anything illegal.”
Larry works his jaw, drums his fingers on the table. He disagrees with Allison, clearly, and she senses more. She also senses that Larry knows Allison knows more than she is saying.
“Flanagan-Maxx didn’t want its fingerprints on the Senate,” he says. “They knew what Mat would have to do, and they wanted a wall between themselves and Mat. That’s why they didn’t hire Mat to begin with, straight up. They used MAAHC as that wall.”
The grocery store is busy today. So is the café. This has become a place to socialize, where women catch up with each other while keeping one eye on their wandering kids.
“Tell your lawyer,” Larry says. “Tell him what I found out.”
“What I do with my lawyer is my business. We agreed on that. You don’t talk to my lawyer. You talk to me.”
Larry reaches for his jacket, a light one hanging over the back of his chair. “You aren’t going to tell him,” he gathers.
“I didn’t say that.”
“Why won’t you tell him? Here.” Larry pushes the documents in front of Allison, printouts from the state board of elections’ website and financial documents on Flanagan-Maxx. He points at the documents as he hikes his laptop bag over his shoulder.
“That’s all you need, right there, for an acquittal,” he says. “And you won’t use it.”
ONE DAY EARLIER
SATURDAY, APRIL 17
This is McCoy.”
“Agent McCoy? Roger Ogren. I see weekends are no better for you than me.”
“They might be a little better for me, Roger. You’re on trial in a couple of weeks. And call me Jane.”
McCoy tucks the phone into her shoulder and reaches for the cheeseburger on her desk. She is losing weight and can’t afford to. A little midday fast-food is the ticket. Only one she knows.
“Yes, that’s right,” Ogren says, “I’m on trial in less than two weeks. I’m wondering if you’re aware of any surprises in store for me.”
McCoy almost coughs up her sandwich.
“Nothing I know of,” she says.
“You’re being coy, Jane.”
“I’m not, really.”
“Unless my memory fails me,” he says, “you have Allison Pagone’s home bugged. You can hear everything she says in there with that fancy eavesdropping equipment.”
McCoy squeezes her burger, causing a dollop of mustard to fall on her jeans.
“Shit,” she says, not to Ogren.
McCoy didn’t want to talk to Roger Ogren, or any state or county official, for that matter, about the fact that Allison Pagone’s house was wired for sound. But the subject had to be broached. Not long after getting Allison Pagone in their sights for Sam Dillon’s murder, the prosecutors and police executed a warrant to search her house. McCoy’s best guess was that they wouldn’t even notice the eavesdropping equipment. But she couldn’t be sure. She and Irv Shiels debated it. They most certainly couldn’t have loose lips discussing the fact that Allison Pagone’s house was miked up. That, obviously, would defeat the purpose of eavesdropping. So the two of them went to the county attorney himself, Elliot Raycroft, and told him. They also threatened, cajoled, and ultimately stroked him into understanding that they couldn’t tell his office a damn thing about what they were doing, and in return, he had to keep quiet about the bug. The conversation was about as enjoyable as eating sand.
She doesn’t like the fact that Ogren’s even raising the topic, but she’s not surprised.
“Surely she must be saying something, Jane. Something I can use.”
“She doesn’t talk about the case in her home,” McCoy says. “Not anything substantive, at least. Not anything that concerns you.”
“Anything that concerns you?” he ventures.
“Maybe.” McCoy wipes at her jeans but it’s pointless. She’ll have to do a load of wash tonight, because these are her only good pair of jeans.
“Look, she talks in her house, obviously,” McCoy elaborates. “But she seems to limit her discussions about the case to her lawyer’s office. She doesn’t have many visitors, and she’s certainly not going to start talking about her case to anyone. If there was something there, I’d tell you, Roger. I’ve told you before, haven’t I?”
“That’s why I called.”
“Well, there’s nothing new to report. I’m looking at her for something unrelated to this murder. I haven’t heard anything from her in that house that is remotely of interest to you. Scout’s honor.”
“You were a Scout?”
“I was a Brownie for about two days. I hated it. Hey, Roger?”
“Yes?”
“You’re still keeping quiet about this? No one else in your office knows that we have her place miked up, right?”
“Yes, Jane,” Ogren replies with no shortage of condescension. “I’m keeping quiet.”
ONE DAY EARLIER
FRIDAY, APRIL 16
Have a seat, Allison, please. Get you anything?
” “I’m fine, thanks.”
Ron McGaffrey sets his considerable frame behind his desk and dons his reading glasses. He lifts a document and reads from it. “Best Served Cold?” he asks.
Allison starts. “What—what did you say?”
“Were you writing a new book with that title?”
“Well, yes,” she says, the heat coming to her face. “That was the working title. How do you know about that?”
“Roger Ogren sent it over this morning,” he says. “Seems it was deleted from your computer? Removed from your hard drive?”
“Yes, that’s right, it was.” She crosses her legs. “I didn’t like it.”
“Okay.” McGaffrey slides it across the desk. “Well, they liked it. Especially page fifty-one. They marked the passage.”
She sits at the desk and pulls up his e-mail. She is not entirely sure what to write or to whom she should send it. It could be anything at all and serve her purposes. All that really matters is that an e-mail was sent from his computer at nine o’clock in the evening, while she is believed to be at a party, and long after she visited his home at noon today. An alibi. Proof of life.
“This was in a chapter entitled ‘Alibi,’ by the way,” he adds sourly.
“That’s right.” She throws the document down on the desk. “So?”
“So?” he asks sarcastically. “So? The story’s about a woman who kills the man she was sleeping with. She kills him during the day but she doesn’t have an alibi for that time. So she goes to his house at night—when she does have an alibi; she’s at a party but she’s snuck out—and she sends an e-mail from his computer. To show he was alive and well when she left him that day.”
“Yes. That’s right.” Allison makes no attempt to hide the anger.
“This novel was deleted at”—McGaffrey looks down at another document—“three twenty-one a.m. on the morning after Sam Dillon died. A little over an hour after you got home, found your daughter at your house. With dirt on your hands, according to Jessica.”
“I don’t remember when I deleted it, Ron. I work in the middle of the night all the time.”
Ron opens his hands. “I have a client who isn’t telling me everything.”
“I didn’t mimic my own book, Ron.”
“I don’t care if you did or you didn’t. I need to know these things.”
“Well, I guess it never occurred to me.”
“It never occurred to you.” Now her lawyer is doing the mimicking. “That e-mail was a big help to us, Allison. It put time-of-death in play for us. It leaves room for the possibility that Dillon was still alive past one in the morning. We know, from Jessica, that you were home at two. If Sam Dillon was murdered later that morning, you have an alibi. Jessica spent the night and saw you the next morning. But now”—he points to the page of the novel—“now, everything I just said is what your character did in you
r book.”
Allison pinches the bridge of her nose, tries to stay even. “Ron, nobody thinks Sam died the next morning. Not even our own pathologist. The partial digestion of his dinner, the broken clock fixed at 7:06. He died around seven on Saturday night. Everyone knows that.”
“Who knew about this—this Best Served Cold book?”
“Nobody.” She shrugs. “I was notorious at my publisher about keeping my work secret until it was finished.”
“I’m not talking about your publisher. Friends? Neighbors? Your ex-husband?”
“No, no, and no. Nobody.”
“Your daughter?”
“I said nobody. Nobody knew, Ron.”
McGaffrey’s face is crimson. He throws his hands up. “I need time to work with this.”
“If you’re talking about moving the trial date, Ron, we’ve discussed that already. That was the first thing I told you. I’m not moving it.”
“That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.” He holds out his hands, as if beseeching her. “Give me a couple of months and maybe I can give you the rest of your life.”
Allison leaves the chair and walks to the window. McGaffrey’s law firm shares a floor of a downtown high-rise. McGaffrey got one of the two corner offices. She can see a glimpse of the lake to the east, the rest of downtown and the pricey lakefront housing to the north. Mat had wanted to move into one of those lakefront condos. He cited proximity to work, avoiding the expressway traffic downtown, but she always assumed it was the cachet of near-north housing that Mat coveted. She preferred their home on the northwest side, the quiet neighborhoods. She liked seeing little kids on tricycles; the streets with trimmed lawns; neighbors talking over the fence; the annual block parties. Something like suburbia, but without giving up the coffee shop, a deli, a couple of restaurants within a short walk.
“We can’t say someone framed you if nobody knew about the alibi in that book,” Ron says. “But I can work on time-of-death. Give me some time here—”
“No, Ron.”
“Why in the world—”